I am trying to crop a clip, then feather the cropped edges.
However, since the crop effect only hides the sides of the clip, but the size is still set to the original size, the feather effect doesn't work.
I think I remember using the clip effect in 2.0 to do this, and it resized the clip, but that effect is gone, so I can't even test to see if it did what I needed.
Any suggestions??
I have a deadline within a day or so, so the sooner the better...
Thanks!

A possible solution would be to use the Linear Wipe effect--it's in Video Effects > Transition > Linear Wipe. It's meant to be used as a transition, but because it's one of those rarefied few that doesn't auto-animate, you can actually use it for a lot of other things. It will also let you crop AND feather in the same effect--bonus. Of course, the problem is that you need to apply it up to four times, assuming a rectangular image that you want to crop--you simply need to change the Angle parameter of the effect for each copy (ie. 0d, 90d, 180d, 270d). This can make tweaking the effect a bit cumbersome, because if you want to alter the amount of the crop or the feather, you have to do it four times.

Fortunately, CS4 added the capability to create effects presets using multiple applied effects, so in case such as this, it's very easy to apply the combined effect to multiple clips, and save it for later. I've uploaded a preset I built to create a 10% four-sided crop with 50 pixel feather. Feel free to download it:
Crop_10_Feather_50. Once you import it into PPro, you can apply it to your clip, tweak it to your specifications, and then select the four copies of Linear Wipe and save it as your own custom preset.

Hope that helps!

NOTE: Be sure to right-click the link and select Save As. Otherwise, it will only be parsed as a text/XML file in your browser window--interesting, but not the effect we're after.

As an addition to Colin's excellent suggestion, one can do this easily with Track Matte Keying. The Track Matte can be made in Titler, and then the soft edges done by applying a Gaussian Blur (or similar) to that Title.

As an addition to Colin's excellent suggestion, one can do this easily with Track Matte Keying. The Track Matte can be made in Titler, and then the soft edges done by applying a Gaussian Blur (or similar) to that Title.

Good luck,

Hunt

Track Matte is certainly another viable way of achieving this effect, and has its own merits and benefits. However, the reason I like using single-clip effects (you'll recall my fondness for the Circle effect) is that they are applied post-transformation. In other words, if you scale or alter the position or rotation of a clip, the single-clip effects "stick" and follow the transformations. You can make this work with a track matte, as well, but it just involves a little more leg work with nesting and so on.

That said, Track Mattes are more flexible than either these approaches, because you can use whatever shape "cookie cutter" you create. The single-clip effects like Crop and Circle (or Crop Circles ) are best reserved for simple rectangular or round mattes.

Thank you so much Colin. Apparently I couldn't access the link using IE8 for some reason, but had no trouble using Chrome. Also, thanks to Hunt for his suggestion. I did have a little play using the titler and the gaussian effect. Nice to know I am on the right track. You guys rock! by the way.

Oops!!! Sorry to bother you again but the preset does not show up in PP . I opened PP CS4 and right clicked the preset folder and chose import and selected the file but nothing showed up. It downloaded as a prfpset. I then tried placing it in the Plug-ins>En_Us>Effect Presets next to the Factory Presets - still nothing appears in the program. When I open it with notepad it appears to be be parsed as a text/XML file, which as you pointed out, is not the effect we wanted.

Yes, that's correct. CS4 added the capability of bundling multiple effects into one preset. Obviously, with the need to apply multiple instances of an effect to achieve something like this, that's pretty helpful.

I uploaded a single-instance version of the effect (though this should be pretty easy to create on your own), which you can download here. I don't know if this will work in CS3, so no guarantees. If it does, apply the preset, and then change the angle--save the preset, and repeat. Then you can apply all four later. Kinda yucky, but that's the best you can do in CS3, unfortunately.

Since importing Colin's preset I have been having a lot of fun playing with the video effects. Maybe a discussion page where we can share the presets that we create might be a fun thing to do. What do you think?

Thanks for the track matte tip. Anything with "Matte" or "Alpha" in scares me off, but even though I have CS4, I've had so much trouble with it that I'm sticking with 3 for as long as possible. Now I can make a BBC man visible without blowing out the cinema screen in the background :-)